Adoring Delaney
The Next Generation
Riley Edwards
Adoring Delaney
The Next Generation
Book 5
Riley Edwards
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Riley Edwards
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. All Rights reserved.
Cover design: Lori Jackson Designa
Written by: Riley Edwards
Published by: Riley Edwards/Rebels Romance
Edited by: Rebecca Hodgkins
Proofreader: Julie Deaton and Rebecca Kendall
Adoring Delaney
First edition – August 2019
Copyright © 2019 Riley Edwards
To all the Rainbow Moms.
To my Rebels.
Contents
Prologue
1. Delaney
2. Carter
3. Delaney
4. Carter
5. Delaney
6. Carter
7. Carter
8. Delaney
9. Carter
10. Delaney
11. Carter
12. Delaney
13. Carter
14. Delaney
15. Carter
16. Delaney
17. Carter
18. Delaney
19. Carter
20. Delaney
21. Carter
22. Delaney
23. Carter
24. Delaney
25. Carter
26. Delaney
27. Carter
28. Delaney
29. Carter
30. Delaney
31. Carter
32. Delaney
33. Carter
34. Carter
35. Quinn
Riley’s Rebels
Also by Riley Edwards
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Prologue
“What the hell is he doing?” I asked the army grunt beside me.
“Lenox! Take the fucking shot.” Master Chief’s angry demand sounded in my ear.
“Tell him to get back.” I ignored the order and told the guy next to me.
I angrily swiped the sweat off my brow and focused on the scene in front of me. Chaos. The air so thick with death and destruction you could taste it. The fear. The desperation. Shit that I was so tired of swallowing.
Now a wet-behind-the-ears Army Specialist on his first deployment was going to get us killed.
“She’s not a threat. She’s holding a—”
“He needs to get the fuck back.”
I adjusted my aim, my finger slipped into the trigger guard, slowly sliding down, and before I could fully press the trigger, in a moment of hesitation and moral dilemma I waited. She adjusted the baby in her arms exposing the suicide vest she had strapped around her chest and I had no choice.
Fuck, shit, fuck.
“Take the—”
My gut soured, my heart hurt, and my soul died a little more.
“Goddammit!” I roared.
I was too late. Waited too long.
A fury of commotion.
A life-changing event.
* * *
“Lieutenant, you’re needed in the TOC.”
My gaze slid to the unfortunate soldier who’d been tasked to find me. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
“But, sir….”
I felt my temper rise and my jaw clenched, his words died and he took a step back. Smart kid.
“Yes, sir, I’ll tell them you’ll report soon.”
I sat down on my cot, my knees spread, my elbows on my thighs, and my head hanging.
Jesus Christ, what had I done?
I hesitated.
Total fuck-up.
I picked my head up, grabbed my personal tablet off my footlocker, tapped the home button, and instantly found what I was after.
Delaney.
I just needed to see her pretty face even if it was only a picture.
My touchstone. My home.
Big pretty smile. Long, shiny black hair and the prettiest blue eyes. She was standing next to my niece, Carson, both of them smiling at the camera. I knew Honor, my sister-in-law, had taken the picture. She’d emailed it to me months ago. I immediately made it the background image.
The email icon caught my attention, an account only my father and uncles had the address for and only used for emergencies. Everyone else in the family used my personal email box. I hesitantly tapped the app and pulled up the email.
Carter,
When you get this call home ASAP. It’s Delaney. Stay safe, son.
Dad
The sour in my gut I’d felt earlier turned to acid.
It would be another week before I was back at the FOB and could call home. Seven days of fucking torture not knowing what was going on with Delaney. Seven goddamned days trying to keep my head in the game so I wouldn’t get dead. I’d tried and failed not to think about Delaney and what could be wrong while I trudged through tunnels and scouted villages.
As soon as we got back to base I went straight to my room and I rummaged through my locker until I found my cellphone. After three tries to my dad, all of them going to voicemail, I called Delaney, went directly to her inbox, too. So I called my best friend, Jason, her brother.
“Hey, man, you stateside?” he greeted.
“No. I got an urgent message from my dad to call home, but he’s not answering. Thought I’d call you. He said it was about Delaney.”
“Did you try her?”
“Yeah. Straight to voicemail.”
“She ran into some trouble…”
Jason quickly briefed me on the investigation, Delaney following a man named Derek Lowe, his arrest, his release on bail, everything. All the way to the bloody end.
And it had been bloody.
“Please tell me you’re fucking with me,” I growled.
The acid churning in my gut turned poisonous.
“’Fraid not.”
“You’re telling me this Lowe fuck took my woman and hit her?”
“So, you finally pulled your head out of your ass and you’re claiming my sister?”
Not this shit again.
“What?”
“You said, my woman. That mean you finally got your shit sorted?” His question hit me like a freight train and before I could answer he continued, more pissed than I’d ever heard him. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Delaney’s bruises are fading. But, man, there’s something broken in her, and she will not share. It can’t be what she saw, because thankfully, she was unconscious when Mercy blew the fucker’s head off. She’s not uttering a word to anyone, the only thing she does say is she’s fine.”
“Fuckin’ Walkers. Stubborn to the core.”
“That’s rich coming from you, friend. My sister has loved you her entire adult life. Yet you push her away because you’re too pig-headed to take what she’s offering you. I’m telling you, she needs you. If you ever loved her, you’ll find a way to get your ass to her as soon as you’re home.”
“Man, that could be another month.”
“Then we’ll see you in a month. But I’m telling you, it’s time. You’ve danced around long enough. It will kill her, but if you don’t want her the way she want
s you, rip the scab off and let her move on.”
“She’s the only woman I’ll ever love. I just—” I paused when my name was shouted followed by three loud bangs on the door. “Hey, I gotta run.”
“Stay safe.”
“Tell her…fuck. Just tell her I’ll be there when I can.”
* * *
Months.
Delaney had been dodging me for months. The last two times I’d come home she was nowhere to be found. Both times she’d answered when I’d called but only to tell me to go home. She’d answer some of my texts, always the same reply: leave me alone.
That wasn’t happening.
We were going to finally have it out. I was waiting, biding my time so I didn’t make a scene. But this shit was ending. I was done with the back and forth and most especially her pulling away from me.
It was a shit thing to do, but today being her brother’s wedding, I knew she couldn’t avoid me and I was using it to my advantage. She looked so damn beautiful in her fancy dress. Though Delaney looked beautiful in an old pair of cut offs and a t-shirt. But that dress, the hem just kissing her knees, drawing my eyes to her toned legs, was spectacular. Especially because I knew what those legs felt like wrapped around my hips. I knew how strong her thighs were when they trapped my head between them when I was going down on her. Just like always I had to fight my body’s reaction. For as long as I could remember I’d been fighting the allure of her. She was magnetic, and as hard as I tried, I could never stay away.
Not when I was sixteen and she was thirteen and we’d been alone on the beach while our families were on vacation in Myrtle Beach, she’d told me she loved me and she would forever. Her sweet voice shook with nerves, her hands were trembling, and her beautiful blue eyes danced in the moonlight. Even as a teenage boy I understood that look. She’d rolled up on her toes and kissed me. It was her first kiss, sloppy, unpracticed, but the best fucking kiss I’d ever had. Pure magic. That was my Delaney.
After I’d taken what she’d sweetly offered I’d set her back and told her not to do that shit again. Hurt shone so brightly in her wounded eyes my resolve had faltered. But then I remembered, I was going away in a year and she needed to be free.
And so our dance began. The fucked-up push and pull. My lips wouldn’t touch Delaney’s again until I was eighteen and she was fifteen. It was the night before I was leaving for the Naval Academy. This time it was me who had pulled her in close and took her mouth.
She was saying goodbye, telling me how proud she was of me, telling me that she knew I’d do great. The way she’d looked at me made me believe I could do anything, achieve anything, have anything. Except have her. The one thing I wanted more than air.
This kiss was no less powerful than the first. It was so good, I’d gone in for more and she’d given it to me. Her hands roamed my back, mine were in her thick black hair and I took my fill knowing it would probably be my last. I’d be gone for four years at school then off to fulfill my Naval contract. She’d find someone. Someone who’d be around to take care of her. Love her. Give her the life she deserved and that man wouldn’t be me.
In a moment of eighteen-year-old weakness, leaving home for the first time, I told her I loved her. I had since I’d known what the emotion was and she’d always be my one and only. Then I told her to move on, we could never be together and I couldn’t have any distractions.
Three years later I was home on leave. Delaney had just graduated high school and was leaving for college. My girl had dreams of being a teacher. It was during that trip home she’d given me her virginity.
Pure fucking magic. From the first kiss to her first orgasm, I owned them. Everything about that night was perfect. A love that was based on lifelong friendship. It was pure, untarnished, and absolute.
The next day I left.
There had been many times I’d broken her heart and shattered mine. Many times, I’d visit her while she was in college. She’d come to my hotel; we’d make love all weekend, stay tangled in the sheets, ordering room service, and she’d tell me about college life.
Those nights I’d lie awake with Delaney’s sweet, exhausted body wrapped around mine and try to come up with a way to make her mine. She could come up to Virginia, transfer to a college there, and…wait for me. It was that night, no matter how many different ways I tried to spin us being together I realized how selfish I was. I’d be gone all the time and she’d be alone.
Then fear had taken root. I was a Navy SEAL; my job was dangerous. I knew there was a chance I wouldn’t come home. Delaney needed better. So, I’d once again pushed her away and ran.
Years had gone by and she was still my one and only. No matter how many times I’d told myself I wasn’t going back, I always did. Every chance I had I’d go to her and every time I left telling myself that it was the last time. She hadn’t asked me for a commitment or a promise of more in a long time. I’d refused to allow her to tie herself to me, she needed to be free to find the man who could give her what she deserved. A beautiful life filled with kids and a husband who came home every night.
She’d stopped asking and it was good she had. My resolve had been slipping, each time she’d told me she’d follow me wherever the Navy stationed me, or that she understood I’d be gone most of the time and she’d be waiting at home made me believe we could have that. But it wasn’t fair. I loved her too much to make her a widow. I loved her too much to take her from our families. I loved her too much to tarnish her beauty.
But I always went back and took more. Demanded to hear her tell me how much she loved me. Demanded her body. Demanded her time. I’d made a lot of demands over the years, none of which I deserved.
I might’ve not allowed her to make me promises, but I’d been committed to her. Since the first time we’d made love, there hadn’t been another woman in my bed. Not once. There were many that had tried but none of them were Delaney. None of them magnetic. None of them magic.
I knew at fifteen she was it for me, and at twenty-eight that knowledge hadn’t waned.
Now Delaney was standing across the dance floor from me and I was done. So done I no longer cared I was going to make a scene. Her brother, Jason, and new sister-in-law were standing next to me talking to her dad, Jasper. Their conversation had long since faded into the background and all of my concentration was on my woman.
I started across the dance floor not taking my eyes off Delaney, so I didn’t miss them widen in fear. She was a smart woman, she knew what was going to happen. I grabbed her hand, knitted our fingers together, and pulled her back in the middle of the dance floor.
It was time. I was making a statement. Something I should’ve done a long time ago instead of keeping us a secret. I tucked her close, kissed the top of her head in a way our families couldn’t misinterpret. The way she fit against my body, even if she was holding hers stiff, the way my lips lingered on her hair was claiming. It was also familiar, something else that wouldn’t escape their notice.
One arm wrapped around her waist, the other went into her hair when she started to pull back.
“No more,” I told her.
“No more?” she asked in a way that I couldn’t miss her anger.
Delaney was hot as hell when she was pissed. Fire flashed in those blue eyes of hers and when they caught, I knew to brace because she didn’t hold back.
“That shit is done,” I growled.
“What are you talking about?”
“Me giving you space.”
“Space? All you’ve ever given me is space, Carter.”
Fuck. Direct shot to the gut.
“And that shit is done, too,” I said.
“I agree. It’s done. We’re done.”
The hell we were.
“We are never done, Laney.” I verbalized my thoughts.
She tried to struggle but not enough to draw anymore attention to us.
“Let go of me,” she hissed.
“That’s never going to happen either.”
“You’re unbelievable. You say you love me, but you don’t care how badly this is hurting me.”
“I love you, with every fiber of my soul. It started the day I understood what the emotion was, and it will be true until the day I die.”
“You’re too late, Carter. We’re done. I’m sorry, I just don’t love you anymore.” She jerked out of my arms, and my body went solid. Tears brimmed in her eyes and her anguish sliced me to my core. What the fuck? “Take care of yourself.”
Before I could recover from what I saw, she was strutting her ass toward the house. I pulled myself out of my stupor and started after her. Two very pissed-off men blocked my path.
“Not now,” I barked and tried to skirt her dad and mine.
My dad’s hand grabbed my arm and once again I was statue-still but inside I was vibrating with anger.
“Dad,” I warned.
“You ready?” Jasper asked, his voice thick with anger. I remained silent trying to get my temper in check. “That’s what I thought. You get your shit sorted before you go after my girl. I’ve allowed this to go on for as long as I have because I know what you feel for my daughter. I know it runs deep and it’s true. I got nothing but love for you, Carter. I was there the day you were born, held your tiny body in my arms and swore I’d protect you with my life. Still would. But mark this, I love my daughter more. You two have been fucking around since she was thirteen and I wanted to kick your little sixteen-year-old ass for kissing my daughter. But I didn’t. Wanna know why?”
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